Catastrophe Cliff Read online

  Nell’s stomach clenched in horror. “Not only did the person push her off the cliff, but when Jennifer grabbed onto the ledge to try and pull herself back up, the killer took a rock and smashed her hands forcing her to release her grip and fall to her death?”

  “Yes.” Peter’s voice was soft.

  “I can’t believe the cruelty.” Nell’s face hardened as she shifted her gaze out the window.

  “There’s more.” Peter’s expression was serious. “Because of the hand injuries, the examiner decided to run toxicology tests.”

  Nell braced herself.

  “A high concentration of a drug was found in her blood.” Peter told her the name of the medication. “Jennifer did not have a prescription for it. The drug can cause drowsiness, dizziness, and disorientation. Someone could have put it in her water bottle or in her morning coffee. It would take about two hours to begin to have an effect.”

  “Jennifer and Kyle had already been hiking for more than two hours when she decided to go to the cliffs,” Nell said.

  “That’s right. But the thing is … this was premeditated. It was planned. So would the killer leave it to chance that Jennifer would want to go to the cliffs?”

  Nell felt a cold river of anxiety race through her body. “Oh, no. Kyle must have suggested it. He must have gone with Jennifer. He didn’t stay behind at the duck pond. He lured her to the cliffs and pushed her off.”

  “Then he took off back to the parking lot to make the call to Jennifer’s phone pretending she was supposed to meet him at the kettle pond and didn’t show up.”

  “Can law enforcement track Kyle’s movements using the GPS information on his phone?”

  “Yes, but it isn’t able to pinpoint a location in the state park. We get a general location and it can be fairly specific, but it can’t tell us if Kyle was on the cliffs or at the duck pond or the kettle pond.” Peter shook his head.

  “Kyle killed her,” Nell said in a sad, soft voice. “Her fiancé took her life. He must have known she wanted to end the engagement. He must have been furious about it. And he had the life insurance policy on her.” She made eye contact with Peter. “Is that drug easy to get?”

  “Yeah. It’s prescribed to treat depression and it’s frequently used to treat pain or insomnia.”

  “Did Kyle have a prescription for it?”

  “It’s being looked into. Even if he didn’t have a prescription, Kyle could easily get it from a friend or pick it up on the street.”

  “Wow.” The word came out as a whisper.

  “A cruiser has been sent to pick up Kyle and bring him to the station for questioning,” Peter said. “Would like to come and listen in? You won’t be allowed in the room during questioning, but you can sit behind the one-way window and watch from there.”

  “Now?”

  Peter checked his watch and nodded.

  “Okay, sure. Molly can handle the shop. I’ll text Violet so she knows where I am and what’s going on.”

  While riding to the police station in Peter’s SUV, a call came in and he pulled to the side of the road.

  “Kyle isn’t at home. The officers went to the middle school to see if he was doing some work in his classroom, but he wasn’t there either.”

  Nell said, “He might be gone for a run or a hike. He could be kayaking. Or doing errands.”

  “I hope he hasn’t taken off.” Peter gripped the steering wheel.

  “He wouldn’t know the police are on to him. He’s probably just gone out for a while,” Nell suggested.

  “Are you okay with driving by his house? We can see if his car is in the driveway. If it is, I’ll notify the officers to go back and pick him up.”

  “That’s fine. Let’s go.”

  Peter pulled the SUV into a neighborhood of small neat ranches and Capes and he slowed as he approached the house Jennifer and Kyle were renting.

  “The car’s there.” Peter called the other officers.

  Ten minutes later, an unmarked police car pulled up to the curb behind Peter’s vehicle.

  “Stay in the car,” Peter told Nell. “I’ll go with the officers to get Kyle.”

  Nell watched the three law enforcement officers walk to the front door and ring the bell. No one answered. They rang again and knocked loudly. Kyle did not come to the door.

  Peter put his hand on his weapon. The other two officers did the same and then they headed around to the back of the house while Peter stayed in front.

  Keeping her eyes pinned on her friend, Nell’s heart pounded. She could see that the kayak on the roof of Kyle’s car was wet, and a few drops of water dribbled out of it and plopped onto the trunk.

  Kyle must have been out on the water in the kayak. He must have recently returned to the house. Why won’t he answer the door?

  In a few minutes, the officers were back and they conversed with Peter. Peter turned to look at Nell in the car. He raised his hand in a stop gesture indicating she should stay inside the vehicle. Then Peter and the officers forcibly entered the home.

  Nell could barely make herself remain in the car. She listened at the open passenger side window for any sounds of a struggle while keeping her eyes glued to the front door.

  Peter emerged and headed to the car.

  “No one’s inside. The officers are conducting a search of the home for drugs or weapons or anything else that might provide clues to Kyle’s guilt. Do you want to come out? We can stand in the driveway and walk around outside. Maybe you’ll pick up on something.”

  Nell gladly left the SUV and went with Peter to look at Kyle’s car.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Peter warned. “Just look.”

  Nell walked around the man’s car, looked in the windows, and checked out the kayak. No colors showed on anything. “Nothing,” she announced to her friend.

  “Let’s take a look out back,” Peter suggested, and they started around the home.

  The yard was tended and neat with a stone patio off the backdoor. Set up on the patio were a table and chairs, a grill, an umbrella for shade, and several big flower pots. The flowers looked droopy and in need of water. The pot near the backdoor had tipped over.

  Nell and Peter walked slowly around scanning the back of the house and the patio.

  Suddenly, shining atoms of dark red, orange, and black appeared before Nell. They clustered together and floated around in a circular pattern like long, thin ribbons on the air.

  “Peter.”

  The detective turned to Nell and when he saw her face, his expression changed to one of concern. “What’s wrong?” He hurried to her side.

  Nell gestured to the back of the house and told him what she saw.

  “What does it mean?”

  “Danger, anger, possibly death.” Nell felt a wave of dizziness and she breathed slow and deep to clear her head, and then she spotted something near the tipped over flower pot. “What’s that on the patio?” She pointed.

  Peter strode over to see what Nell was pointing at. He knelt on the patio and stared, then stood and looked at the black wrought-iron railing next to the steps leading to the backdoor of the house.

  With a grave expression, the detective looked over at Nell. “It looks like blood.”

  16

  Sitting on their neighbors’ deck, Nell told Violet, John, and Ida about the visit to Kyle McLeod’s house. John and Ida were hosting dinner and there was a platter of antipasto and two plates of homemade calzones on the outdoor buffet table. Iris and Oscar lay in the grass near the deck steps.

  “When Peter said it might be blood, I thought I might pass out for a few seconds.” Nell used the pitcher of lemon water to fill her glass.

  “The police didn’t find Kyle?” Ida asked.

  “There’s no sign of him.”

  Violet was thinking out loud. “What if Kyle faked his disappearance. He could have cut himself and dropped blood onto the patio and the railing. He might be trying to make the police think he’s innocent and that something has h
appened to him.”

  “That’s an interesting idea.” Nell cut into her calzone of grilled vegetables and cheese.

  John, a former investigative reporter, said, “Kyle could have been working with someone else to murder Jennifer, the arrangement between them went bad, and his partner decided to get rid of him.”

  Nell looked stricken. “I didn’t think of that either. You think someone involved in Jennifer’s death killed Kyle?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but in my working years, I saw a whole lot of crazy,” John told them.

  “The world is full of people who don’t have any qualms about stealing, cheating, killing, or hurting,” Ida said. “But you have to remember to focus on the good around us. When John was working, he had to remind himself of that on almost a daily basis. If we only see the criminals, we’ll lose our respect for humanity.”

  “That’s true.” Violet nodded. “If Kyle had a partner, who might it be? A new girlfriend? Someone he hired to kill Jennifer? A buddy who helped out in order to get half the life insurance money?”

  “Any of those ideas are possibilities,” John said.

  “We’ve been told that the teacher from the middle school, Lindsey Horn, had a romantic interest in Kyle,” Nell said. “When we interviewed her, I noticed she had a professional manicure, but that some of her nails were broken.”

  “The broken nails might be the result of a fight with someone,” Violet speculated. “Did Lindsey fight with Jennifer on the cliffs … to get rid of Jen and clear the way for herself to get together with Kyle?”

  “Kyle’s other friend, Joel Bishop, had a love interest in Jennifer,” Nell said. “He says he never made a move or revealed his desire, but maybe that’s a lie. People have told us that Jennifer knew Joel had a thing for her and he made her uncomfortable. Maybe Joel didn’t like being rejected. Maybe he was so angry about it, he decided to kill Jen.”

  “Both Lindsey and Joel were running in the park that morning,” Violet pointed out. “They separated at one point and went their own ways. Either one of them could have followed the trails Jennifer and Kyle took. They knew where the couple was headed. When Jen and Kyle decided to hike in different directions, Joel or Lindsey could have made their move and killed her.”

  “If that’s the case, the killing might not have been premeditated,” John suggested.

  Nell said, “But Jennifer had a drug in her system that made her drowsy and dizzy. If the murder wasn’t premeditated, where did the drug come from?”

  “Peter told you the drug was prescribed for depression,” Violet said. “Jen might have been feeling low about her decision to end things with Kyle. She might have requested the prescription from her doctor.”

  “Peter told me Jen didn’t have a prescription for that drug,” Nell said. “Lindsey or Joel could have planned the murder. They probably had access to Jennifer’s water bottle. One of them could easily have slipped the drug into the water, made an excuse to run alone, and then went off to find Jen. It wouldn’t have been hard to find her because she and Kyle often walked the same trails whenever they parked in the west lot.”

  “Didn’t Joel tell you and Peter that Lindsey wanted to stay in the park and do another running loop?” Violet asked.

  “He did tell us that,” Nell said, “but he might have been telling us a lie.”

  John said, “Seems like you need to have another chat with Lindsey and ask her what she really said.”

  Peter, Dani, Violet, Rob, an associate of Rob’s named Atkins Murray, and Nell met for drinks in a popular pub in the center of Bluewater. A band was playing Irish pop music and the crowd was lively and energetic with many people taking to the dance floor.

  “We needed this,” Violet said pulling Nell and Dani out to dance. “We needed to get out and have a fun time.”

  When the song was over, the three young women went back to the guys at the bar and took their hands dragging them out to dance to the next tune. Atkins was a very serious medical doctor and researcher who could be stuffy and full of himself, and he protested when Violet and Dani each took a hand to take him to dance with the group.

  “I don’t dance,” Atkins told them.

  “That’s why you act like an old stuffed shirt,” Violet scolded him. “You need to get your head out of your research once in a while and act like a human being instead of a robot.”

  Atkins started to bluster excuses.

  “I’m not having it,” Violet said. “Tonight you’re going to loosen up and have actual fun.”

  As the group danced to the popular song, Atkins shuffled his feet awkwardly to the music looking like he was being forced to walk among poisonous snakes.

  When the band stopped to take a break, Violet asked Atkins, “That wasn’t half bad, was it?”

  “I guess not.” Atkins wiped at his sweaty face with a napkin.

  “You need to do more of it,” Dani told him as she handed him another beer. “Pretty soon you’ll be dancing on the tabletops,” she kidded.

  Atkins had a horrified look on his face.

  Nell stood with Rob and Peter chatting about going for a sail on the weekend when a woman walked over to them.

  With her dark, wavy hair cascading over her shoulders, Lindsey Horn, dressed in a tight skirt and a sheer blouse, greeted them. She took a sip from the glass of wine in her hand. She addressed her comment to Peter. “I hear Kyle McLeod is missing.”

  Peter kept his expression neutral. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Through the gossip grapevine. Did he run off? Leave town? Makes him look guilty, doesn’t it?” Lindsey took a step closer to Peter.

  “He might have gone on a vacation,” Peter shrugged.

  “Really? A vacation? His girlfriend just died a few days ago. You think he’d decide to take a trip somewhere?”

  “People deal with things in their own way.” Peter took a swallow of his beer. “When was the last time you saw Kyle?”

  “In the state forest on the day Jen died.”

  “You haven’t been in touch with him?”

  “I sent him a condolence card. I thought he was probably busy with arrangements and such. I’ll see him at the service for Jen. Why haven’t they arranged one yet?”

  “I’m not sure,” Peter told her. “Have you seen Joel Bishop lately?”

  “We ran together this morning.” Lindsey leaned lazily against the bar.

  “Did you run in the state park again?” Nell asked.

  Lindsey gave Nell a look of distaste. “We didn’t feel like it. We ran on the roads.”

  “When you ran with Joel in the park on the day Jennifer died,” Peter said, “did you run back to town together?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “We’re trying to create a timeline. If you were on the road at a certain time that day, you might have seen something.”

  “I didn’t see anything. I focus when I run.”

  “Did you and Joel run back to town together?” Peter asked again.

  “I stayed at the park to run another loop. Joel decided to head home.”

  “Why didn’t Joel stay to run with you?”

  “He was hot and tired. He’d had enough.”

  “Did you see anyone in the park when you stayed behind to run some more?” Peter questioned.

  “I didn’t see anyone.” Lindsey took another sip of her wine.

  “How long did it take you to run the extra loop?” Nell asked.

  Lindsey cocked her head to the side. “Twenty-five minutes?”

  “And did you run home after that?” Peter asked.

  “I did.”

  “Did you see Joel on the road?”

  “No. He was probably at home by the time I hit the road,” Lindsey said. “So what do you think is up with Kyle?”

  “We don’t know,” Peter said.

  “Want my opinion? I think he got scared. I think he left town because he thinks he’s a suspect. I bet he thinks you’ll link him to Jennifer’s death.”


  “Why would that happen?” Peter questioned.

  Lindsey tilted her head. “Maybe because Kyle killed her?”

  “You think so?” Peter eyed the woman.

  Lindsey shrugged. “I’m not a detective, but I don’t think Kyle was as fond of Jen as he used to be. He realized there are a lot of other fish in the sea.”

  “Why do you say that about Kyle?” Nell asked. Lindsey was awash in pink and yellow.

  “I don’t know. It was the impression I got. Maybe I’m wrong, but Kyle seemed less interested in the relationship.”

  “Do you have any examples?” Peter asked.

  “Not really. It was nothing Kyle said. Things just didn’t seem the same between him and Jen.” Lindsey lifted her hand and pushed her hair over her shoulder.

  “You got your nails fixed,” Nell noted. “The new color looks great.”

  “Thanks.” Lindsey didn’t look like she meant it.

  17

  Nell and Peter walked down the halls of the nearly-empty middle school to Kyle McLeod’s classroom. They’d checked in at the office and were told the rooms on that hallway would be unlocked because the tech team was going around to test the new high-speed wireless internet.

  Inside the room, there was no sign that Kyle had been there recently. The walls were mostly empty of posters and the countertops under the cabinets had only a few stray calculators and a couple of pencils on them.

  “Kyle must come in closer to the start of school to get his room ready,” Nell said.

  As Peter walked slowly around the teacher’s desk, someone poked her head into the room.

  A short, slim blonde in her late twenties smiled at Nell and Peter. “Oh, hi. I saw the lights were on. I thought Kyle might be in.”